Boxcar Sunday, Let's see your boxcars.

     This n that...

The ubiquity of PENNSYLVANIA plain

  The PRR went in for minimal identification on its cars.    The 1903 ACF catalog illustrates the very functional nature of the markings.

Minimal or not – the PRR did command the attention of the various pre-war toy makers.

Bing

The Bing manufacturing company provided essentially true-to-prototype markings in its boxcar line.  In this instance they copied the ACF illustration right down to the car number identification

Fandor

Their competitor, Fandor, followed suit.  The only difference was Fandor decided to give the car a different identifying number.

On this side of the pond in the pre-war period Ives and Dorfan offered boxcars in PRR livery.  Being more true-to-toy than prototype the graphics of their offerings were a bit more fanciful and colorful.

Ives

Dorfan

In the postwar period Lionel offered their version of PENNSYLVANIA plain first in their 6454 series and then in their 6464 series.

6454

The graphics for the 6454 series bears a close resemblance to an Atlas model of an outside braced boxcar with a build date in the 1920’s.

Atlas

One aspect of all of the 6454 series cars (not just the PRR) were the gradual changes made during the time of their offering:

Door with latch on the wrong side

Door with latch on the right side, a placard holder, and no stirrup steps

Door with latch on the right side, two placard holders on the door,  and no stirrup steps

The only major deviation from plain in the 6454 series were those PRR cars offered in orange.  The orange car came with both an orange door and a brown door.

6464

In the 6464 series it was back to basics but with a different version of the plain side graphics.

Marx

To the best of my knowledge the first toy train maker to note and take advantage of some of the more colorful liveries some of the PRR cars were sporting was Marx.

The PRR Merchandise Service cars while somewhat exaggerated with respect to car color – did do a good job of showing off a different PRR style with their 1954 offering.

  My understanding is the litho printing consisted of 16 cars to a sheet. One aspect of the litho printing that put Marx way ahead of its competition was a different reporting number for each car.  In the case of the PRR Merchandise Service car the numbers went from 37960 to 37975 and there was one car which was produced with no car number. So, if you want you can track down all 17 cars and have a consist that will be true-to-prototype with respect to reporting marks.

Later

With the advent of the MPC era for Lionel as well as the appearance on the O scale scene of other manufacturers like MTH and K-Line the various manufacturers made it a point to offer PRR boxcars in something other than PENNSYLVANIA plain.

K-line

Later Lionel

@Dave Ripp. posted:

Excellent history and overview Robert.

I agree Excellent and I enjoyed learning about the variations,

RMT also made a 'traditional' size 3-rail O-gauge boxcar for PRR LCL-Merchandise service in 2 different paint styles and 3 roadnumbers...in about 2009 era.

Walter/RMT

Santa Fe boxcar has round aground needing assistance to regain it's footing on the rails.

Here are a few of mine rounding a curve on the upper level today:

A couple new paint jobs for this week, went south on me. So….

Here are some older repaints and a factory painted car..(G&W)

Tom

@Dave Ripp. posted:

For this week I'll show an Atlas O 50-foot Santa Fe pulled by a Williams FM.

Dave, you have some really cool, and nice, rolling stock! I really like that Santa Fe All the Way boxcar above! FM's are a unique locomotive due to the power unit. The diesel-electric design was borrowed from submarines. Nice FM model in blue and yellow Warbonnet! Love to see a video of some consists with your collection of freight cars! :-) Thanks for posting!

Well really neat pictures everyone.  @Robert S. Butler - What a great display and explanation of the PRR boxcar over the years and with various manufacturers.  Lessons that are of great value, especially to me as a collector.  Thank you for taking the time and effort to post.  @RMT - Ready Made Trains  thanks for adding in your knowledge of the offerings of RMT.

I thought today I might follow Robert Butler's lead (although with far more modest offerings) and show some of Lionel's prewar lithographed box cars.  OBTW, Joshua Cowen hated lithography thought it was cheap and made the line look cheap.  He finally adopted it during the Depression when anything to sell trains was on the table and cost reduction was king to drive pricing down.  After taking over full control of the remnants of Ives in 1930, Lionel planned a new, inexpensive line called Lionel - Ives...It didn't do that well yet Lionel had invested quite a bit of money so  they migrated the collection to the Lionel line and by 1934 all of the cars carried the Lionel name alone.

Here is the Lionel #1679 box car from 1933-34.

Out of chronological order, however the 1679 using the "Baby Ruth" Curtis Candy name from about 1940

The 1679 with a cream body and the "Baby Ruth" candy logo from 1934-1935.  This design continued until 1939 but the door and door guides changed to orange in 1937.

All the above cars are in the medium sized series of about 8'' in length.  These cars were eventually included in Lionel's catalog starting in about 1933.  However a large series of lithographed cars about 10" in length were designed and offered as part of the Ives Division of Lionel in 1932 and when that closed down in 1933 they were transitioned to the Lionel line (Ives name replaced by Lionel).  However these, quite nice in my view, cars were never integrated into the Lionel catalog and only sold  in promotional outfits.  So here is the Lionel #1719 lithographed box car of 1935-1938 (Note with black journals the car continued to be offered through 1941).

Well here is hoping everyone has a great week.  At the moment it is raining here in central Texas for the first time in about 2 months and hopefully the drought conditions will begin to ease.

Best Wishes

Don

Beer here! Beer here!

Where did that beer come from?

I believe those beer company boxcars are mostly MPC. Arnold

@Don McErlean posted:

Well really neat pictures everyone.  @Robert S. Butler - What a great display and explanation of the PRR boxcar over the years and with various manufacturers.  Lessons that are of great value, especially to me as a collector.  Thank you for taking the time and effort to post.  @RMT - Ready Made Trains  thanks for adding in your knowledge of the offerings of RMT.

I thought today I might follow Robert Butler's lead (although with far more modest offerings) and show some of Lionel's prewar lithographed box cars.  OBTW, Joshua Cowen hated lithography thought it was cheap and made the line look cheap.  He finally adopted it during the Depression when anything to sell trains was on the table and cost reduction was king to drive pricing down.  After taking over full control of the remnants of Ives in 1930, Lionel planned a new, inexpensive line called Lionel - Ives...It didn't do that well yet Lionel had invested quite a bit of money so  they migrated the collection to the Lionel line and by 1934 all of the cars carried the Lionel name alone.

Here is the Lionel #1679 box car from 1933-34.

Out of chronological order, however the 1679 using the "Baby Ruth" Curtis Candy name from about 1940

The 1679 with a cream body and the "Baby Ruth" candy logo from 1934-1935.  This design continued until 1939 but the door and door guides changed to orange in 1937.

All the above cars are in the medium sized series of about 8'' in length.  These cars were eventually included in Lionel's catalog starting in about 1933.  However a large series of lithographed cars about 10" in length were designed and offered as part of the Ives Division of Lionel in 1932 and when that closed down in 1933 they were transitioned to the Lionel line (Ives name replaced by Lionel).  However these, quite nice in my view, cars were never integrated into the Lionel catalog and only sold  in promotional outfits.  So here is the Lionel #1719 lithographed box car of 1935-1938 (Note with black journals the car continued to be offered through 1941).

Well here is hoping everyone has a great week.  At the moment it is raining here in central Texas for the first time in about 2 months and hopefully the drought conditions will begin to ease.

Best Wishes

Don

Don, although I've never gone in the pre-war lithograph direction in my collection, IMO your above boxcars have a lot of charm, and I bet they have significant value. Thanks for sharing photos of them. Arnold

Arnold - Thank you so much for your compliment.  I do think the lithograph car have charm that is indicative of the (more innocent perhaps) pre war era of toy trains.   I liked the "Beer" display both the box cars (I agree I think they are mostly MPC) and the folks at track-side and waiting to get into "Yankee" Stadium.  We lived in NJ just outside the NY city area until I was about 21 (then I got married and moved) and some of my fondest memories are when Dad would convince Mom I really didn't need to go to school that day and off we would go to the Yankee Stadium!  Hot dogs, Coke, peanuts and him teaching me how to keep score in the program.  Precious memories.

Best Wishes

Don

@Don McErlean posted:

Arnold - Thank you so much for your compliment.  I do think the lithograph car have charm that is indicative of the (more innocent perhaps) pre war era of toy trains.   I liked the "Beer" display both the box cars (I agree I think they are mostly MPC) and the folks at track-side and waiting to get into "Yankee" Stadium.  We lived in NJ just outside the NY city area until I was about 21 (then I got married and moved) and some of my fondest memories are when Dad would convince Mom I really didn't need to go to school that day and off we would go to the Yankee Stadium!  Hot dogs, Coke, peanuts and him teaching me how to keep score in the program.  Precious memories.

Best Wishes

Don

Don, although not about the Yankees, I recommend to you a wonderful book by presidential historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, entitled Wait Till Next Year. It's about the Brooklyn Dodgers, life in Carle Place, Long Island in the 1940s and early 1950s, and she describes how she would keep score of the games listening to the radio when she was a little girl, and then tell her father all the plays in the game when he got home from work.

It's one of my favorite books. Arnold

I posted this photo earlier today with the "tinplate group":

My first Standard Gauge boxcar.  

Mark in Oregon

@Strummer posted:

I posted this photo earlier today with the "tinplate group":

My first Standard Gauge boxcar.  

Mark in Oregon

Gorgeous

From "Spy vs. Spy" cars to the main event, may I second the nomination for "Alfred E. Neuman."

Happy Boxcar Sunday everyone.

Graffiti car . Did this one quite awhile ago in memory of our two pups that went over the rainbow bridge.

🐶  Han Solo.    and     Anakin Skywalker  🐶

Let's hear it for the Mail Carriers, those folks who help deliver all those things we order:

RK 40’ DBL Door - my 4 y/o granddaughter thinks it’s very Halloweenie!

@das boot posted:

From "Spy vs. Spy" cars to the main event, may I second the nomination for "Alfred E. Neuman."

Love those MAD boxcars! Brings back memories of my dentist in the 60's where I read most of the MAD Magazines of the time while in the waiting room. After all, Alfred E Newman is missing a tooth, maybe a suggestive advertisement for taking care of your teeth! LoL Mr. Lopsided Newman runs for President campaign; I remember it well. Thanks for the Das Boot!

Wow, there’s a lot of beautiful box cars pictured today, one from a MADD generation of fun, some ancient lithographed beauties, tinplate originals, then a brief history on many box cars, and then some hand painted cars with beautiful decals, all fun to review. Today, these are a couple of Lionel Car Cars, just because I think they bring back memories. Happy Railroading Everyone

@WesternPacific2217 posted:

Dave, you have some really cool, and nice, rolling stock! I really like that Santa Fe All the Way boxcar above! FMs are a unique locomotive due to the power unit. The diesel-electric design was borrowed from submarines. Nice FM model in blue and yellow Warbonnet! Love to see a video of some consists with your collection of freight cars! :-) Thanks for posting!

Scott, you are the second request, so I'll get it done soon. My daughter in law has been hospitalized going on 5 weeks so I've been strapped for time. Things are looking up for her so I will start doing videos in the next couple of weeks. I have 19 or so FM's 4 of which are Santa Fe. I can run about a dozen cars on my 054 curves so a video would be nice.

Thanks for asking.

@WesternPacific2217 posted:

Love those MAD boxcars! Brings back memories of my dentist in the 60's where I read most of the MAD Magazines of the time while in the waiting room. After all, Alfred E Newman is missing a tooth, maybe a suggestive advertisement for taking care of your teeth! LoL Mr. Lopsided Newman runs for President campaign; I remember it well. Thanks for the Das Boot!

That is a good idea, take a dentist office experience plus stir in a Mad magazine and you might come up with another interesting  boxcar, thanks.

@RMT - Ready Made Trains posted:

RMT also made a 'traditional' size 3-rail O-gauge boxcar for PRR LCL-Merchandise service in 2 different paint styles and 3 roadnumbers...in about 2009 era.

Walter/RMT

These RMT cars are interesting.  I did not know anyone produced models with this Raymond Lowey proposed scheme.  As background, when the PRR decided to start LCL service, Mr. Lowey provided three designs to PRR management.  The two designs NOT chosen were the one above, and the one below by MTH.

The design chosen was this one.

The 40' car has "Merchandise" on one side of the door, and "Service" on the other side.  The 50' (above) and 60' cars had both words to the left of the door.  The color scheme of the above cars is called Phase 1 and applied from 8/1947 to 1/1950.

Like all Lowey designs, they were soon simplified to save money.  For Phase 2 the silver and white stripe was replaced with a simple white stripe, and the logo was no longer red but more the color of the car.  Atlas O's X29 car is of the Phase 2 design which appeared 2/1950.  Since my layout era is late 40s, I do not have any of these cars to show.

Lionel prewar 800 boxcar. CA. 1918-1925

Here are a few recent boxcar projects.  They are designed for use on my waybill-driven New Haven RR, so there are some detail (hear “fragile”) parts that come and go.  I’m still learning to weather, but strive for a variety similar to prototype.  Some cars look new, some like they have spent hard miles on the road.

Pecos River Brass, painted and lettered for the NHRR

Another Pecos River car, painted and lettered for a Hartford, CT department store. Decals were scanned from promo material and custom printed.  I’ve painted and lettered a fleet of delivery trucks in the same scheme.

This one is a 1970s AHM 40’ car , re-trucked and lightly weathered.

Atlas 1970s production, originally IC, painted and lettered for the D&H.

Weaver 50’ but with a bit “heavier” weather.

Here’s another  AHM 40’ car, formerly EL painted and lettered for interchange service with a friend’s LNE railroad.

@leapinlarry posted:

Wow, there’s a lot of beautiful box cars pictured today, one from a MADD generation of fun, some ancient lithographed beauties, tinplate originals, then a brief history on many box cars, and then some hand painted cars with beautiful decals, all fun to review. Today, these are a couple of Lionel Car Cars, just because I think they bring back memories. Happy Railroading Everyone

Boxcar Sunday Kharma! I just got these two last week! I'd really like to have one in Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge. My first car was a '76 Malibu Classic, I got an '03 Marauder when it was released for Ford's 100th and now I've got an '08 Challenger with 4500 miles.

@trumpettrain posted:

Santa Fe boxcar has round aground needing assistance to regain it's footing on the rails.

Be careful around those curves! Remember, Speed Kills!

Railbox:

@pd - Great picture.  Is that a customized Lionel 655?  Prewar in a modern livery, imaginative and really neat looking.

Don

@Dave Ripp.- Dave I am embarrassed to say that I completely missed your comment concerning your daughter in law.  Belatedly let me say that I hope she fully recovers quickly.  Good luck, I know what this kind of crises can take out of someone.

Respectfully

Don

OK, it's Saturday evening. I need to get a lot done around la Casa Bloomo tomorrow, so here's a few questions about something I bought at York:  (pictures Sunday)

It's a PRR boxcar. Size of a 6464, and same as the original full-scale boxcar #714.  Metal. Black metal frame cast with "No. 714 (space) MADE IN U.S OF AMERICA / LIONEL CORPORATION N.Y. (space) PART NO. 714-3" Boxcar red, and so are the doors.

Mint brand-new condition. Decals, not stamped. Both sides the same. Car # 100800  NEW 3-27 (this and weights on left end), dimensions and BLT 3-38 and "714" on right end. Not "X714"

Looking through a doorway, at the inside of the opposite wall of the car, one can see "PART NO. 714" cast in the metal. Looking up at the inside of the roof, one can see that the original two-part (?) casting was fastened with two small flat metal bars, holding the two halves together for the casting/molding process.

Plastic sprung trucks with scale wheels and body-mounted Kadee couplers.  The two metal doors, door guides, push pins, in a plastic bag inside the car. Doors have black latches. Frame is screwed to the floor. Floor is screwed to the body.

The seller knew nothing about the car. I bought it for 8 bucks.

Since I am ignorant of any manufacturing of cars like this in the last 40 years, I have a few questions:

Who made it? Why does it have a frame and body cast with pre-war Lionel name and part#'s? Is it a well-done copy? Did Lionel re-issue the scale freight cars? It's not a Kramer - I have a few of them.

Thank you for any insight you can provide. Did I do good for $8? (Trolling for a compliment.)

Did many paint projects this past week. Only a few boxcars though…

First two are a Weaver car and a Crown car,  I stripped and repainted.

A fictional road, the Bradford, Ridgeway and Punxsutawney Railroad, on the Crown car,

And a Weaver car decorated for the Great Northern…

Finally two MTH factory painted cars...

On the PRR car, I replaced the road number with the correct font, as well as adding some extra decals…then some dry brush weathering…

The Erie car had a less than stellar Erie Diamond. I replaced the original with a Tichy decal and dry brush weathered the car…

Tom

@Arthur P. Bloom posted:

OK, it's Saturday evening. I need to get a lot done around la Casa Bloomo tomorrow, so here's a few questions about something I bought at York:  (pictures Sunday)

It's a PRR boxcar. Size of a 6464, and same as the original full-scale boxcar #714.  Metal. Black metal frame cast with "No. 714 (space) MADE IN U.S OF AMERICA / LIONEL CORPORATION N.Y. (space) PART NO. 714-3" Boxcar red, and so are the doors.

Mint brand-new condition. Decals, not stamped. Both sides the same. Car # 100800  NEW 3-27 (this and weights on left end), dimensions and BLT 3-38 and "714" on right end. Not "X714"

Looking through a doorway, at the inside of the opposite wall of the car, one can see "PART NO. 714" cast in the metal. Looking up at the inside of the roof, one can see that the original two-part (?) casting was fastened with two small flat metal bars, holding the two halves together for the casting/molding process.

Plastic sprung trucks with scale wheels and body-mounted Kadee couplers.  The two metal doors, door guides, push pins, in a plastic bag inside the car. Doors have black latches. Base is screwed to the floor. Floor is screwed to the body.

The seller knew nothing about the car. I bought it for 8 bucks.

Since I am ignorant of any manufacturing of cars like this in the last 40 years, I have a few questions:

Who made it? Why does it have a frame and body cast with pre-war Lionel name and part#'s? Is it a well-done copy? Did Lionel re-issue the scale freight cars? It's not a Kramer - I have a few of them.

Thank you for any insight you can provide. Did I do good for $8? (Trolling for a compliment.)

I'da bought it! PRR forever!

Here is a nice 50-foot Elgin Joliet & Eastern, a recent purchase from Berwyn's Trains.

Hello BxCrSun fans, thought today I might post a little historical perspective on how Lionel's tinplate boxcar and cattle car progressed in O gauge.

Here is the #800 box car and #802 cattle car.  These 4 wheel cars (about 5" long) look similar to a pair of 8 wheel (and larger) cars numbered #820 & #821.  Both the 4 wheel and 8 wheel cars were available from about 1915 and continued until 1926 .

As we move through the middle 1920's the cars begin to get more elaborate paint schemes and decoration as we see the # 805 & #806 which followed on the pair above starting in 1927 and continuing until about 1934.  These cars were somewhat larger at 6 1/2 " long.

Lionel then sort of followed a 2 path track with its rolling stock creating a line of larger (and more expensive) cars and then a line of smaller cars.  First to come along, was a replacement for the larger 8 wheel cars the #820 & #821.  The #813 and #814 (about 8 " long) shown below were brought out in 1926 and continued until 1942.  There were detail changes in decoration and trim but the basic cars were part of the line that full period.

Next to come along were follow on's to the 4 wheel cars, basically a smaller line to the 813/814.  These were significantly smaller than the 813/814  series but were still 8 wheel.  The #655 and 656 (about 6 1/2 " long as they shared the same body style as the 4 wheel 805/806 cars)  below were brought out in 1932 (box car) and 1935 (cattle car).  These ran until about the end of the prewar period, although the cattle car was withdrawn in 1940 while the box car continued until 1942.

So that's it for me today.  You can see that Lionel, like their competitors, progressed from  the period of the early trains (1915 or so) to much more elaborately decorated and larger cars of the 1930's and 40's.  These larger and more elaborate cars were also heavier so required larger and more powerful locomotives and of course were more expensive.  Not too big a deal in the "roaring" 20's but by 1932 with the Depression at its worst they became unaffordable to many of the customer base. This required some innovative solutions to stay afloat and would result in the loss of Ives and Dorfan from the market.

Best Wishes Hope you have a great week.

Don

Here I am playing “catch up,” with a few additional boxcars seen on the NEW Haven just weeks into the Penn Central merger:

The Hartford Courant (the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper) was ready to receive newsprint, but this car derailed onto my workbench.  The original car is Atlas, C&O,   PAINT IS Scalecoat II, and decals are old Champ.  

Atlas IC ORIGINAL, with a bit of light road dust, waiting to receive its load of high quality woolen cloth from the Hockanum Mills in Rockville, CT.

An early PC 50’ boxcar in a through freight in Danbury. Paint by Tamyia, decals by MicroScale.   Flooding must have washed out the ballast??  Or maybe I didn’t get to that yet.  Lol

Here are a few of mine waiting on the shelf for their next run:

I suppose you can tell I like the UP!

Wow, page 53 of this uniquely fun to review thread. @Don McErlean, again you’ve pictured some oldies but beauties, (tinplate colors are beautiful) and given a reasonably neat history of the cars, wheel arrangements, 4 wheel/8 wheel, good times, and then The Depression, bad times you might say and the interesting tidbit of information was the pricing, higher cost, higher prices, making affordability a key issue. How about prices in 2022? Just kidding…. @Don Sierakowski 111617, nice cars, IC car is nicely weathered, and Spruce Falls is a nice car, @Stangtrain, beautiful UP collection, @Dave Ripp, those new Atlas O cars are very nice, unique road name,EJ&E, beautiful color, Bar GP7 63, Johan, that’s a cool Hoods Milk car, nice layout, Happy Railroading Everyone